What Leaders Read

A Bird On The Shoulder

excerpt from: tuesdays with Morrie – an old man, a young man, and life’s greatest lesson by Mitch Albom

“Everyone knows they’re going to die,” he said again, “but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.”

So we kid ourselves about death, I said.

“Yes. But there’s a better approach. To know you’re going to die, and to be prepared for it any time. That’s better. That way you can actually be more involved in your life while you’re living.”

How can you ever be prepared to die?

“Do what Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, ‘Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?’ ”

He turned his head to his shoulder as if the bird were there now.

“Is today the day I die?” he said.

Morrie borrowed freely from all religions. He was born Jewish, but became an agnostic when he was a teenager, partly because of all that had happened to him as a child. He enjoyed some of the philosophies of Buddhism and Christianity, and he still felt at home, culturally, in Judaism. He was a religious mutt, which made him even more open to the students he taught over the years. And the things he was saying on his final months on earth seemed to transcend all religious differences. Death has a way of doing that.

“The truth is, Mitch,” he said, “once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

I nodded.

“I’m going to say it again,” he said. “ Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.” He smiled, and I realized what he was doing. He was making sure I absorbed this point, without embarrassing me by asking. It was part of what made him a good teacher.

Did you think much about death before you got sick, I asked.

“No,” Morrie smiled. “ I was like everyone else. I once told a friend of mine, in a moment of exuberance, ‘I’m gonna be the healthiest old man you ever met!’ ”

How old were you?

“In my sixties.”

So you were optimistic.

“Why not? Like I said, no one really believes they’re going to die.”

But everyone knows someone who has died, I said. Why is it so hard to think about dying?

“Because,” Morrie continued, “ most of us all walk around as if we’re sleepwalking. We really don’t experience the world fully, because we’re half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we’ve to do.”

And facing death changes all that?

“Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently.”

He sighed. “ Learn how to die, and you learn how to live.”

I noticed that he quivered now when he moved his hands. His glasses hung around his neck, and when he lifted them to his eyes, they slid around his temples, as if he were trying to put them on someone else in the dark. I reached over to help guide them onto his ears.

“Thank you,” Morrie whispered. He smiled when my hand brushed up against his head. The slightest human contact was immediate joy.

“Mitch. Can I tell you something?”

Of course, I said.

“You might not like it.”

Why not?

“Well, the truth is, if you really listen to that bird on your shoulder, if you accept that you can die at any time –